Producing Your First Feature Film – How to protect yourself and your work
By Lisa Crawford Bruhn
Developmentally Edited by Alexandra Hidalgo
Copy Edited and Posted by Megan Elias
I did it backward. I didn’t make shorts or go to film school–I jumped headfirst into making a feature film. Would I do it again if I knew then what I know now? For sure! It’s been six years since I started that project and since then I’ve made several shorts, taken lots of classes, written a few feature film scripts, and optioned two others, and I hope to be embarking on my next feature film production this year.
It began as a project we could work on together–my son the actor and mom the writer. Making a film together provided a perfect opportunity to spend loads of time with Tyler. Together we began developing the story. We wanted it to be something inspirational and make the audience laugh and cry.
We were lucky. We had no catastrophic issues in the making of Carving A Life. Yet, I’ve heard nightmare stories from producers who ended up in lawsuits, got a bad rep in the industry, or even went to jail. Here’s my disclaimer: there is no fail-proof, risk-free process in filmmaking, but there are several things you can do to mitigate the risks. Here’s what I learned in the process of making my first film, hoping these tips will help others who embark on the journey.
Carving a Life‘s amazing cast and director Terry Ross
Insurance. A must have, along with Liability and Workman’s Compensation. Many producers of low budget projects skip this expense because their budget is squeezed–not a good idea. One never plans for an accident, but if it happens, even a little accident can be a big deal. Insurance is a small cost compared to the cost of dealing with an accident without insurance. Hopefully, you won’t get to know your insurance agent well because you won’t have any issues, but if you do have an incident, they will be your best friend as you work through this incident. Pick a good liability insurance company. We went with ASIS for our insurance broker, but there are others who offer film liability insurance, such as Film Emporium. For a low budget feature film expect it to be anywhere from $2K to $10K (with many variables affecting the price, such as stunts, locations, automobiles). I’ll get into workman’s compensation below during the payroll discussion.
Screen Actors Guild. Make it a SAG union project. SAG gets a bad wrap from low budget indie filmmakers who don’t want to pay the upfront bond, the added fees, fill the paperwork, and comply with the rules. I get that. It’s a lot of work and some extra cost. The upside is that you can cast experienced actors who might have a window in between other projects to fit in your project. It adds credibility to actors and agents. The rules are reasonable expectations so you don’t overwork people and burn them out. The SAG paperwork is what you would need for solid production accounting anyway.
Copyrights, contracts, and releases. They are all needed to legally protect writers and also needed for chain of title for distribution. I will go into more detail about this below.
Production Lawyer. Make sure to hire an entertainment lawyer in pre-production because it can save you money overall. They may require a retainer or might just charge you for a one time visit, in which case you should get a full list of all questions you have and knock them all out during that visit. The lawyer can read your script and discuss any potential issues you might have with copyright of titles, names, etc. It’s a good idea to do this before you go through the expense of a title clearance because you may decide to change your title after the meeting with the lawyer. The lawyer will also guide you with cast and crew releases and contracts that are a minimum to have to your product and your film. Unless you are funding the film yourself, the lawyer can also discuss investor contracts and securities rules prior to bringing in any investors.
Karenssa LeGear being the only one ready for a picture on the set of Carving a Life
Investors. You can get into securities issues if you publicly solicit funds for your film. Have your entertainment lawyer guide you through the process of investor terms sheets and agreements.
Pre-Production
First, register your screenplay with the Library of Congress to establish copyright with the writer(s). It costs about $55. The writer may have done this already but if not, make sure they do, or you do it for them. If you aren’t the writer, then your production company will need to have a contract with the writer giving your production company the rights to produce the film.
Second, do a title clearance. Why? If the title of the film has already been used, it opens up the possibility of a lawsuit. The clearance will tell the producers if there is a potential problem, so they might want to change the title of the film. If the clearance comes back okay, then that is protection if someone down the road tries to sue claiming they have copyright to that title. Do an online search for “film title clearance” to find a company–there are several to choose from. We used Clearance Unlimited and paid $395 in 2013.
Crew Deal Memos and Talent Agreements. Everyone involved in the film needs to sign a contract with the production company, including the producers, director, and writer. These need to be work for hire contracts where the production company owns the film. Consult with an entertainment lawyer in pre-production who can read your script and give you contract templates and production advise, based on your script and team. We consulted with Donaldson & Callif and bought their book on Amazon that had a CD with all the contract templates we needed. It includes a composer agreement that you can use to give the production company all rights to the original music created in the film. I highly recommend this for lower budget films rather than licensing existing music where you’ll pay up front fees and royalties. The accounting for the music residuals becomes more complicated than SAG residuals as there are so many people and companies to pay for music–songwriter, whoever performed the song, the publisher of the song… The initial legal consultation was the best $600 spent in development and pre-production.
Carving a Life’s very focused director and DP
Releases. You’ll need to have each location owner sign one and the same for any products or property that will be seen in the film. If you use someone’s car as a picture car, the owner needs to sign a release. If you show a pizza box with the pizza company name on it, the owner of the pizza place needs to sign a release. Make sure the actor contracts have a “picture release” giving the production company the rights to use their “likeness” in the film.
Production
Payroll. Set up a payroll account and hire a payroll company. It’s a requirement for SAG production and will save you a lot of time in accounting later. The payroll company pays the taxes and send out the W2 forms to your employees. Speaking of employees, everyone on set that is on the call sheet is an employee, not an independent contractor. If you mandate the hours, then they are an employee. An editor or location scout might be a contractor, but your crew and talent are all employees. Basically, if they are on the call sheet, then you are mandating their hours. The difference between employees and independent contractors comes down to this: are you telling them what hours they need to work and providing them with tools resources to do their jobs? If yes, then they are employees. Are they making their own hours and providing most of their own equipment? If yes, then they are independent contractor (like a painter who paints your house). The payroll company will likely set up the workman’s comp and will give you the tax forms you need the cast and crew to fill in. Get a detail-oriented production coordinator to handle getting all your paperwork signed by cast and crew. Use a secure portal for sending and receiving any forms that have sensitive information, like DocuSign. “ABS Payroll,” “Complete Production Services,” and “Cast and Crew” all have entertainment payroll operations and work closely with SAG. They will help make sure you are in compliance with the SAG rules to avoid penalties. They work with producers anywhere, you don’t have to be in Los Angeles or NYC.
There are boatloads of SAG paperwork to do in production. Make sure you hire a production coordinator who’s done it before, so they aren’t learning on your dime. SAG will likely require you pay a bond of up to 100% of the total SAG talent payroll. You won’t get this back until about 12 weeks after the film wraps, providing you send them all the final production paperwork right away and that it is accurate.
Keep daily production notes that go with the call sheets. What happened during the day? Were there any issues that needed resolving, were there scenes that were planned but not filmed, any equipment failures or equipment purchases or rentals.
Scene one, take one of Carving a Life
Have an all hands cast and crew meeting on the first day of production and provide a document that outlines the expectations for members of the cast and crew. Discuss any location requirements such as opening, closing, garbage management, stage cleaning, no nails in the walls, so that everyone is on the same page. Talk about safety and mandate that if anyone sees any potential safety issues, bring them immediately to the AD, Production Manager, or set medic. It’s ideal if one of your crew has EMT or nurse training and can be the official set medic. Talk about respect and mandate that if anyone feels uncomfortable with language or physical contact from anyone else, they should bring that immediately to the AD or Production Manager. Let everyone know that harassment of any kind is not acceptable. Since not everyone will be on set the first day, you can reiterate the mandatory information in writing. Making a film is a business, the film is the product, and as the Producer, you are the CEO of the company.
Review the state and city labor laws and make sure your department heads review these and put in place policies so that your team complies with the rules. Here are the current statues effective January 1, 2019. As an employer, you’ll need to post the labor rules where all employees can see it (posters can be purchased online for a few bucks). Don’t pay any cast or crew day-rates that are lower than the minimum wage labor law rules.
Post-Production
Review paperwork. Make sure contracts and releases are fully signed and dated. Any missing contracts or paperwork? Get it done now. It will be much harder to track people down later.
Credits. Your Production Coordinator should create a spreadsheet of all cast and crew with the names and roles written exactly per the contracts, with notes if talent gets a single card and opening or end credits.
Night Filming for Carving a Life
Backup. Have at least two or three hard drive backups throughout the production and post-production processes. Our editor had her laptop and hard drive stolen from her car during post production. Luckily, we were doing weekly backups and had a hard drive of the raw video and audio files and the edited video with the producer and post-production supervisor.
Distribution. There are all kinds of distribution options today from DIY aggregators to publishing the film on your own Youtube or Vimeo, to full-service distribution companies. Don’t sign anything without your lawyer reviewing. Some shady distributors will try to take all your rights and keep all the revenues.
One of the best ways to help you get from start to finish with minimal issues is to surround yourself with experienced people. Consider having a qualified entertainment lawyer, payroll and insurance company, and experienced line producer, production manager, assistant director, and department heads (camera, sound, lighting). They are key to the success of your film. I was a newbie, but I was lucky enough to find a fantastic experienced crew to go along on this feature film journey. We are all still friends today. My first feature “Carving A Life” was distributed by IndieRights and is available to watch on several VOD and SVOD platforms including Amazon Prime, Roku, GooglePlay, iTunes, Vudu, Xbox, and Youtube.
Learn more about Lisa by visiting her profile and website. Learn more about Carving a Life on the film’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.